NCRI – A political prisoner, Reza Hoda Saber, who was a journalist and translator, died on Saturday June 11, as a result of a heart attack due to hunger strike and reluctance of mullahs’ regime’s henchmen to transfer him to a hospital. Physicians have stated disinclination of prison guards for his timely transfer to a hospital, as the cause of death.
Saber, a managing official of the banned “Iran Farda” magazine, was arrested and imprisoned many times in 2000- 2009, spending many years in solitary confinement. In May 2004, he was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment. In 2006, he received an 8-month sentence for helping to establish a non-governmental organization. Lastly, he was arrested in August of 2010 and was jailed in the infamous Evin Prison.
Protesting the atrocious actions of regime’s suppressive forces during the funeral of Ezatollah Sahabi which led to the death of Sahabi’s daughter, Haleh, Saber and other political prisoners went on a hunger strike on June 2; he suffered from a heart failure ten days later.
Fearing popular protests during Mr. Saber’s burial ceremonies, the anti-human mullahs’ regime has not returned Mr. Saber’s body to his family and has not permitted his family to hold any ceremonies.
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran offered her condolences to the family and friends of Mr. Reza Hoda Saber and stressed that intensified suppression, increased executions, and torturing political prisoners to death, especially in recent months, smacks of desperate attempts by the anti-human mullahs’ regime to stave off the steadfast resistance of heroic prisoners such as Ali Saremi, Hossein Khezri, Jafar Kazemi, Ali Haj-Aghayi, Mohsen Dokmechi, and Reza Hoda Saber, who have frustrated the regime and its henchmen by their unbreakable resistance. She called on the heroic and freedom loving youth throughout Iran to assist the political prisoners and their families as a patriotic duty.
Mrs. Rajavi called on international organizations and human rights bodies, especially the United Nations Secretary General, the Security Council, and the High Commissioner of Human Rights, to condemn regime’s atrocities, and to take urgent steps for saving the lives of political prisoners in Iran. She asked for referring violations of human rights by the mullahs’ regime to the Security Council and prosecuting Khamenei and other leaders of the regime for crimes against humanity.
Secretariat of the National Council of resistance of Iran
June 12, 2011